I think Gearing is wrong about hooks, and I think he’s wrong to say rumours are any different or better. I’m not going to go into detail here, but basically: It’s my job as a writer to make everyone’s life easier when it comes to playing in my module, my job as a referee to make it easier for my table to engage with the module, and players who are great at taking the lead can ignore any hooks or rumours.
But most hooks and most rumours aren’t very good. Hooks are just, to set up my analogy, bare hooks with no worm on them. Why would the players bite? What makes a juicy worm, then? And rumours, they’re siri telling you to turn left in 300 meters, where they should be directions provided by locals, informed by local knowledge, that speak about how the locals perceive their locale. And, they should get to the point: People don’t speak in generalities, they’re specific, more often than they’re right.
Let’s get to some rules of thumb, huh? show do we make our hooks catchier and our rumours more local?
Juicy worms for catchy hooks
A link to the outside world: Give them a character, a guild, a letter, a friend who tells them the hook. Someone in their world they know and they care about or hate or love, and connect them to the module and the risks and benefits of exploring it. Make it personal to the characters. Give them a reason to engage more than “cool rewards” and “there’s a social contract”. Not because they need it, because it makes it more fun. “My sister needs a potion that only Druid Beckett can provide or she’ll die”, where Druid Beckett is missing.
A solid basis for interaction: This is a link to the module itself. Make sure that it gives the players a specific goal within the module, so they have a direction to take if they don’t find one themselves. That doesn’t have to be the main thing in the module, but if it’s not, make sure they get a thread to pull on where you send them that will lead them there. “You need to kill the rats in the cellar of the local inn” and in that cellar is a clue to the location of the Blue Jewel.
A prejudice: At least some of the hooks should give the players the wrong impression of the situation. It should subvert what’s going on. It should be a different lens. There’s a beast on the loose? A menagerie wants it captured, not killed. It’s the rangers’ best friend, possessed by a magic broach, remove the broach! Good hooks often change the whole goal of the module, or reveal secrets that change the player’s approaches, that wouldn’t otherwise be obvious.
Local knowledge for razor-sharp rumours
A direction, not a hint: Rumours aren’t the button that says “I can’t solve the puzzle, give me the hint”, they’re the puzzle itself. They direct to specific clues that add up to solutions. You’ll probably only provide a few rumours to your players, so make them count: If you’re telling someone how to get to the local pizzeria, you aren’t going to give them vague directions. “The priest has gone mad, cursed because he slept with the mayor’s wife, and he’s locked himself in the clock tower”.
A reflection of what the speaker cares about: Rumours always reflect the beliefs of the person who provides them. This means you should tailor them to different groups, where you can. If you want to tell a truth, think of how the goblins would interpret that truth. Make the people of the world real through the rumours you give, they’ll often be one of only a few vectors through which anything about them is communicated. In the above rumour, that is not the reason the vicar is cursed, but rather an example of the conservative beliefs of the speaker.
An interesting direction, even if they’re false: They always lead somewhere useful. There are no red herrings or tricks. Where they send you, there should always be a useful thing, even if it’s not the one or thing you expected. False rumours can feel really nasty as players, so here the more obvious the subversion the better: They should feel excited they followed the lead, even if they didn’t get what they expected. “Saint Jahn was buried with a magical sword that was made to slay dragons on a single strike.” Doesn’t lead to that sword, but does lead to a secret passage that bypasses the dragon’s first defences.
Anyway, that’s what I reckon. Did I miss anything?
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